Are we Fated at the hands of the Gods or do we carve our own Destiny? – Understanding your Web of Wyrd

The topics of fate, free will and destiny have been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember and so over the years I have pondered if there is a difference between fate and destiny or if they are two words for the same concept.

 Over decades I have studied disciplines such as Astrology, Numerology, Tarot, Gene Keys and more recently the Elder Futhark Runes to deepen my understanding and contemplation of this topic.

 I have also journeyed with spirit to learn from their wisdom and I would love to share some of my discoveries over many years of pondering and experiential spirit work. This mostly comes under what we know as UPG or Unverified Personal Gnosis so please take what resonates and leave what doesn’t because your ideas may be different from my own.

 Let me first start by explaining the word Wyrd as it features in the title of this article.

WYRD is an Anglo-Saxon word roughly translating to fate or could perhaps even encapsulate the idea of karma to the Germanic peoples of Europe. Karma is in itself a household word but quite a misunderstood concept brought to us by the Eastern Traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism.

 In the myths of the Norse, the three Norns (The Nornir or Fates in Greco/Roman Mythology) weave our Wyrd. In ancient times our ancestors were more likely to believe that we were the play things of the Gods and had little choice in our future outcomes however as we have expanded our consciousness in this age, most would now understand that we absolutely have free will.  Karma for our ancient ancestors was more about honour and reputation, courage and how we responded to our “lot”.

 In one ceremony I wanted to discover more about our WYRD and how it functioned.

Here I was told “You are both in control and not in control of your Wyrd”.

 Spirit often provides oxymorons because many things in the Universe are both true and not true at the same time due to our multidimensional complexity. Upon further contemplation and dialogue, I reached the perception that Destiny and Fate have their differences in meaning and hence the oxymoron makes perfect sense because I perceive Destiny as the more exalted vibration of Fate.

 Fate is where we are led if we do not resolve our Karma while Destiny is the goal, which we set before our very first lifetime on Earth and remains the goal that takes us off the Wheel of Samsara that keeps us cycling in death and rebirth.

 It is impossible to live life without creating Karma along the way and so there is a dance going on between the fabric of fate and destiny. It can take a great deal of lifetimes to reach our destiny and perhaps some never do, this for sure I cannot say. All I know is that I have experienced an intense drive to fulfill my destiny has called me since I was in my youth.

The Norns; who are known by their individual names as Urd, Verdandi and Skuld are representations of past, present and future. They cannot alter our past and future as much as many over the years I’m sure have begged them to do. What they do instead is weave the changes that we make as we work hard to resolve those karmic imprints and with the goal of eventually reaching our ultimate Destiny.

 Our fate is something that befalls us if we continue creating Karma while our Dharma, another Eastern word is a frequency we feel in our life when we are less encumbered by Karma and are steering towards the path of Destiny and off that Wheel of death and rebirth.

 Coming off the wheel means we now have a choice if we come back and reincarnate on Earth rather than being compelled by the need to resolve our Karma. We can also switch the words Self-Actualisation in Buddhism with Destiny.

 Now I have also asked myself if we can know only our own Destiny or that of another. I certainly have worked hard at studying what helps us evolve so that we attain the fulfilment of Destiny but at this point on my journey, I believe for the most part that we are the only ones that can truly discern our own Destiny at the human level.

 To know our Destiny we absolutely need a strong connection with our Higher Self. Others can certainly point us in the right direction but ultimately the knowledge of our destined truth is for us to discover alone.

 We have many tools that help us know our purpose in life and this is intwined with our ultimate Destiny although I believe that our Purpose is like a mini version of destiny, like reaching a significant marker along the journey in a lifetime but our ultimate Destiny usually takes multiple lifetimes to attain.

 The other complicating factor is that we have both personal WYRD and Ancestral ORLOG that shape our web of WYRD. We really can only fulfill our Destiny if we clear both our personal and ancestral karma because both become blocks along our path. But that’s a story for another time.

 Misha (Runa RavenWolf)